


Crimson, Silver and Gold

by BlazingStarInInkyBlackness



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Healing, Missing in Action, Self-Denial, Self-Destruction, Slight Yang/ Blake, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, not volume 4 compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 18:06:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14194674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlazingStarInInkyBlackness/pseuds/BlazingStarInInkyBlackness
Summary: When Yang vanishes on a hunt she’s presumed dead. Unfortunately Ruby cannot seem to get past the first stage; denial.As the world around her crumbles she reminds herself that Yang would be there, would always have been there. Ruby just needs to find her.(Slightly based off Red Like Roses 2 by Jeff Williams)





	Crimson, Silver and Gold

**Author's Note:**

> This is not canon to volume 4 or 5. I wrote this right after volume 3 aired and just never posted it. I decided to now.  
> It's slightly based off Red like roses 2 cause the first time I heard that I thought it was Yang talking to Ruby (it's actually Summer talking to Ruby)  
> Anyway, ignore the slightly cringey writing, it's not as good as my current stuff but I still like it so I'm not going to rewrite it

When Ruby woke in a far too clean room Weiss was beside her, watching her in worry. Ruby blinked in confusion before sitting up. Suddenly Weiss was there, pushing her back down.

“You’re not meant to get up yet!” She exclaimed but there was something missing. Weiss snapped at Ruby all the time. But not like that. Not like she was just pretending. “You- you’re going to hurt yourself.” Against Weiss’ pale skin, white hair and white clothes the small red she wore caught the eye instantly. Her collar proudly boasted the colour but now her eyes did too. She’d been crying.

“Weiss, where am I?” Ruby asked quietly. Weiss frowned for a moment before climbing up to sit on Ruby’s bed and taking her hand. Ruby blinked in confusion, Weiss wasn’t exactly the most tactile of the group. That had to go to Yang, who would-

Ruby broke that train of thought as she suddenly wondered where Yang was. Ever since Beacon fell Yang had made sure to stick close to Ruby, they’d all stuck close. The memory of Pyrrha and Penny was still far too fresh in their minds. Yang not being there was odd to say the least.

“Weiss, where’s Yang?” At the question Weiss glanced away as tears filled her eyes. She turned fully away as she began to sob in earnest, releasing Ruby’s hand to cover her own face. Ruby watched in mounting horror as Weiss, one of the least emotional people she had ever met, broke down in front of her. “Weiss?” Ruby sat up. “Where’s Yang?”

“She-” Weiss took a calming breath before turning back to Ruby. “You were on a hunt, remember?” Ruby nodded. A Nevermore had descended from the skies while they’d just been chatting. Ruby remembered grabbing for Crescent Rose to find it was on the ground. Ruby remembered running with Yang beside her. Ruby remembered running without Yang beside her.

“Where is she?” Ruby whispered, tears filling her own eyes. “Weiss, where is she?”

“Ruby,” Weiss broke off again, wiping tears from her face. “We can’t find her. She- she’s gone.” Ruby stared at Weiss for a long moment as she tried to work through the words. She knew what each word meant but they didn’t fit together. It was as if it were a puzzle, it was obvious that each piece on its own could be made into something bigger but they just didn’t fit together.

“What do you mean?” Ruby heard her voice tremble slightly.

“She’s dead Ruby.” Ruby stared at Weiss as the pieces finally slotted into place; Yang was dead. Her sister was dead. Her oldest friend, her most loyal companion, her confidant, was gone, was dead, was not coming back. “Ruby?” Ruby moved her head up slowly to meet Weiss’ worried eyes. She opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. She didn’t feel tears coming on, she didn’t feel like sobbing. She felt almost cheated, that Yang would have been taken from her, taken from the world this early.

“I want to be alone.” Ruby whispered. Weiss hesitated before nodding and leaving the room. Ruby stared at the opposite wall, expecting herself to break down into tears now. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t muster a single tear.

Eventually she drifted off to dreams full of screams and shouts, where she grabbed for a hand that wasn’t there as they tried to run. And all the way through she could just think of Yang. The puzzle still didn’t fit.

 

“Is she okay?” Jaune whispered to Ren. The teen shrugged.

“They were close. Yang’s death was always going to affect her. After Penny and-” Ren broke off. “And Pyrrha, Ruby’s seen enough people die.”

“Yeah.” Jaune murmured. They were looking down at Ruby who was wielding Crescent Rose with deadly accuracy as she ripped apart some of the training dummies. It had been a week since the news and Ruby, despite being told to rest, had trained for most of those days. There was something different in the way she wielded the thing now, it had always been an extension of her but now it seemed to be more of a hindrance, as if the tiny girl was the one ripping apart the creatures rather than the scythe.

Ren put his hand on Jaune’s shoulder. “She’ll be okay. We just have to wait.”

So they waited.

 

After another week Ruby was ready to fight Grimm. Well, she insisted that she was anyway. The rest of team RNJR wasn’t convinced, neither were the remains of team RWBY. But that team was a mess by now, one dead, two in deep mourning and one in denial. Because no matter how many times Ruby heard it she still didn’t believe that Yang was dead. It didn’t fit into her view of the world. She was determined to show the rest of them that they were wrong.

RNJR decided to humour her, bringing Blake and Weiss to track down some of Beacon’s other students. After the dragon had risen they’d been scattered across the land, some going home to the different regions. They knew that some of the groups hadn’t been able to get back, Blake had noticed team FNKI fighting a Beowulf as she scouted out Beacon a few months ago. The team seemed to be winning easily so Blake had just continued.

Now they had heard someone talking about team CFVY and Ruby had insisted on finding them. Since she’d heard what Velvet could do she’d been curious but CFVY had taken off quickly, trying to get home before the borders closed. The rest of the world had heard about Beacon eventually and had upped the security on their borders and it still hadn’t been enough. The Grimm were too powerful for humans, Faunus or robots to fight. In the end they had blocked it off physically, praying that the people within Beacon could survive on their own. The following months had told them that too many couldn’t without the help of Hunters and Huntresses.

The need for Hunters and Huntresses had never been stronger and that was what team RNJR was doing. Oobleck and Port had managed to get enough people together to make a base of operations to work from and every team they could find they brought back to the city. So now, despite many arguments for Ruby’s safety, team RNJR and RWBY set off to find team FNKI.

On the first day they were jumped by a group of Beowolves. Nora and Ren stuck together in the fight, seemed to be more worried about each other than they had been for many years. Weiss and Blake fought back to back, watching every angle as they did. Blake didn’t rush forwards, didn’t let herself get that far away from her friend just in case. Neither of them wanted to think of what it was might be.

Jaune was on offense, unusual for him, but compared to Ruby it was nothing. She swung Crescent Rose like a demon, leaping into the pack without thinking as she ripped them apart. The line of stitches along her back from her confrontation with the Nevermore was the only thing Jaune could see in the flurry of limbs and weapon that the pack became. When she was hit, flung several steps back, she leapt up again and wiped the blood off her forehead. She was ready to leap back in but Weiss caught her just in time. Jaune, Ren and Nora were circling the last Beowulf.

“You don’t need to fight.”

“Let me go!” Ruby cried. “They took Yang! They took her! We need her back!” The Grimm exploded into flecks of black and Ruby stopped struggling. “I need her back.” Ruby mumbled. Weiss and Blake glanced at each other. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that Ruby was fifteen. She was young but she’d still been given so much stress.

She’d been moved up two years, to enter into one of the most prestigious fighting schools in the world. She’d been given leadership over three seventeen year olds. She’d been trained to fight with one of the deadliest, and most difficult, weapons. Her first mission had been one for someone four years older than her. She’d lost her mother so early in life, never really having that relationship with anyone. But Yang had been there, had always been there. Now she wasn’t.

No matter how much Ruby had to be responsible she’d risen to the challenge and when she needed to collapse there had been her sister.

“It’s okay.” Blake whispered, hugging Ruby tightly. “It’ll all be okay.” Not for the first time Blake wondered if that was a lie. How could life go on without Yang there?

 

When team FNKI was back at the base Blake decided to stay behind. She could do more to relocate the White Fang members, she argued. But before they left on their next mission she’d drawn Weiss to her side.

“Look after her, all right?” Blake whispered, nodding towards Ruby. Weiss nodded before frowning.

“Why are you leaving?”

“I need to be here.” Blake murmured. Weiss went to argue but then stopped herself.

“Okay. Good luck then I guess.” She turned on her heels and strode towards Ruby who was busy sharpening Crescent Rose. She did that a lot recently. She’d always been a good fighter but now she was powered by something else, forced forwards as she was pushed through her life too fast.

“Weiss, can we g **o** now?”

“Yeah Ruby. We’re ready to go.”

“Weiss, where’s Blake?” Ruby looked at Blake’s back in confusion as she walked off, head bowed. Weiss glanced at the Faunus as well and sighed.

“The Faunus need her here. She’ll be more help here.”

“That’s good.” Ruby muttered, trying to sound cheerful. “She’ll be happy here, right?” Weiss nodded and Ruby smiled back. In the time since Yang had vanished she’d begun to come to terms with it. Yang had vanished, she’d never died. Yang couldn’t die, that would be ridiculous!

So she was being kept somewhere. Maybe Grimm had got her, maybe Cinder had her, maybe the White Fang, it didn’t matter. Ruby was going to find her sister. She slid off the chair and sheathed Crescent Rose.

“Are we ready to go?”

“Where are we going, Ruby?” Weiss asked cautiously. Ruby smiled.

“We’re going to the White Fang.”

“The White Fang?” Weiss exclaimed. “What?”

“I mean, I thought Blake would be with us but-”

“No!” Weiss exclaimed. “We can’t go to the White Fang! How do you think we’d stand up against them?”

“We’re good.”

“Not that good!”

“Come on,”

“Does Port know about this?”

“Well, no.” Ruby shrugged. “But we can do this! Since when did team RWBY need permission?”

“Ruby-” Ruby turned to Weiss in confusion. Weiss sighed and shook her head. “We can’t do that.”

“Yeah we can!”

“Ruby!” Weiss exclaimed. “There are five of us! Blake’s gone! Cinder killed Pyhrra! Yang died!” Ruby faltered for a moment, smile slipping off her face. She stood still and stared, confused, at Weiss.

“She’s not dead, Weiss. You know that, right?”

“Ruby-”

“I know it, Weiss! I can feel it!” Ruby frowned when she saw Weiss refusing to agree with her, just shaking her head. “I know she is!”

“We looked Ruby. There was nothing left.”

“You see? There was nothing! A Grimm couldn’t eat someone whole! They’d-”

“They ate Torchwick whole, remember? These Grimm can do anything Ruby.”

“So you want me to give up?”

“I want you to slow down a bit.” Weiss placed a calming hand on Ruby’s shoulder which the younger girl shrugged off.

“I don’t need to slow down.” She snarled. “I need to find my sister!”

 

Beacon had fallen at the end of fall. Ruby left with team RNJR as the first rays of spring hit the ground. Yang had blazed so bright in the summer, the roaring heat only eclipsed by her weapon, halved but no less deadly. By the next fall the light had gone, the fire had died down. The cold of winter found Ruby stood over her mother’s grave once more.

“Hey mom. It’s been a while I know.” Ruby sat down on the floor and curled her knees up to rest her chin on her knees. “Life got weird. I don’t- I don’t know if you can hear me,” Ruby stared at the grave in front of her and wiped away a bit of the snow threatening to cover the Huntress’ name. “Everything just- just fell apart, you know? I was meant to be a Huntress, just like you! Just like the stories.” Ruby paused for a moment, tracing her mother’s name with her fingers. “Yang used to tell me those stories.” She mumbled, as if to herself rather than whatever was left of her mother. “The Grimm took her. Or maybe the White Fang. Or Cinder but she’s not dead mom. I know it!” Ruby paused again. “But if- if she is,” she whispered, ashamed of herself for even thinking it. “Can you tell her I’m sorry? I messed up. I shouldn’t have distracted her. If I hadn’t- if I hadn’t-” Ruby wiped away some of the tears streaming down her face. “If I hadn’t then she’d still be here.”

 

The next day Ruby didn’t come back. Blake was the first to notice, keeping a close eye on the girl ever since Yang died. When Ruby had told the Faunus she was visiting her mother’s grave Blake just nodded and made a note of it. When Ruby didn’t come back Blake raced to find her.

Weiss caught her on the way, demanding to know what was happening but Blake didn’t have the time to explain, or at least she didn’t take the time to explain. So the pitiful remains of RWBY and JNPR raced off to find Ruby.

Oobleck found out and went with them to ‘keep an eye on them all’. CFVY was going to go but Port stepped in, they needed all the teams they could to stay behind.

In the end it didn’t matter.

They could have brought every single Hunter and Huntress in the world. They could have brought Ozpin with them, could have revived Phyrra and Penny and nothing would have changed. Because when they finally reached the grave they found it decorated with blood.

Rose petals, the same colour as the blood, covered the ground along with bullet shells from what must have been Crescent rose. The snow was undisturbed and there was no Grimm to be seen but they all knew that meant nothing. Ruby could be alive, she could be dead. The only clue they had left was her cloak.

She never took the cloak off when she was outside. No matter what she was doing it was still draped across her shoulders, it still cascaded down her back. Now it lay folded over the grave, half covered by snow, with no sign of its owner.

At the sight Weiss broke down. Blake stared at the material in her hands uncomprehendingly. Losing Penny had been heart-breaking. Losing Pyrrha had been devastating. Losing Yang had been unimaginable. Ruby gone?

Blake didn’t want to think about it.

“Come on now students,” Oobleck started. “Spread out a bit. Mrs Schnee, you come with me.” Weiss still lay on the floor sobbing as she clutched the cape in her hands. The rest of the students paused before slowly dissipating. Nora was quiet as she walked next to Ren, for once she had nothing to say. All she could think was Ruby, the girl who had become a friend so quickly, who was one of Nora’s best friends. Now that wonderful child might be nothing more than a ripped cape in the snow.

“Ms Schnee-” Oobleck started before crouching down next to the girl. “We need to carry on.”

“Carry on?” Weiss hiccupped slightly. “They’re picking us off one by one. Penny, Pyrrha, Ozpin, Yang, Ruby, who’s going to be next? Blake? Jaune? Neptune? There aren’t many of us left anymore.”

“I understand how upsetting this is. Believe me I do. But we cannot give up now.”

“When can we then?” Weiss snapped. “When can we just relax again?”

“Humanity has fought this war before, Ms Schnee. With dust and comradery we survived. Ozpin truly believed in his students and Team RWBY and this is not the time to give up.”

“But-” Weiss paused before nodding and wiping her eyes. She stood shakily and Oobleck did the same. “What can we do to survive this then?”

“Ms Schnee, if I knew I would be doing it already.”


End file.
